Wednesday, 12 June 2013

Mali manual suggests al-Qaida has feared weapon.

Mali manual suggests al-Qaida has feared weapon.

AP

Associated Press/ECPAD, Olivier Debes - In this March 29, 2013 photo provided by the French Army's images division, ECPAD, a French soldier holds the launch tube of an SA-7 surface-to-air missile before its …more

TIMBUKTU, Mali (AP) — The photocopies of the manual lay in heaps on the floor, in stacks that scaled one wall, like Xeroxed, stapled handouts for a class.

Except that the students in this case were al-Qaida fighters in Mali. And the manual was a detailed guide, with diagrams and photographs, on how to use a weapon that particularly concerns the United States: A surface-to-air missile capable of taking down a commercial airplane.

The 26-page document in Arabic, recovered by The Associated Press in a building that had been occupied by al-Qaida in the Islamic Maghreb in Timbuktu, strongly suggests the group now possesses the SA-7 surface-to-air missile, known to the Pentagon as the Grail, according to terrorism specialists. And it confirms that the al-Qaida cell is actively training its fighters to use these weapons, also called man-portable air-defense systems, or MANPADS, which likely came from the arms depots of ex-Libyan strongman Col. Moammar Gadhafi.(Courtesy:Yahoo News)Read More>>>